Valentine's Day produces more than babies

These are some of the pictures I drew when I was in Gambia in 2007 with the intention of coloring at some point. Now I've finally gotten around to it. Valentines with no valentine seemed like the perfect time.




I like this one,




And I discovered that in order to take a good picture I should hold it up in front of my lamp. The color from the markers soaking through the paper makes the picture look electric, but then my camera's flash balanced it and the colors came out pretty true. But the lamp trick gave me an idea to build a picture frame with a lit-back housing. These prismacolor markers look crazy when illuminated from behind.

Flies

One of the positives about working in this lab is that I have flies in my coffee. No one here knows why they love coffee, but from what I observe, they do. I enjoy speaking French to one of two Venezuelans in our lab, who responds in Spanish that I kind of remember. I would like to practice Spanish but she laughs critically at my accent and not hers. Between tearing out ovaries and extracting DNA we have fun. It's a small lab in the middle of publishing a paper I had nothing to do with, but concerning projects I will be continuing to unfold in the next few years.

One of the projects is wound healing mechanisms in fruit fly babies. We basically burn a hole in an early or late stage embryo with a laser, and watch as it fluorescently heals itself, or not, depending on a number of factors. Mounting the embryos on a slide is a fairly delicate process. And a separate DNA identification experiment hasn't been going well lately. The DNA wouldn't go back into solution, it just sat like a fat white plug in 300ul 10mM Tris/10mM EDTA + 20ul RNase (Roche 10mg/ml stock). Just to get to that point, which is still at the beginning of this whole test, took a bit of work. Now we start over and hope it goes well this time. The problem could have been any number of factors. The best bet is that I've never really worked in a research lab before now.

You all should check this out. Look through his archives on the right hand column and listen to anything that has "mp3" after it.

The Funnier Gene

In fruit fly genetics, genes are named not by the visible, normal, wildtype phenotypic expression, but by the distinguishable mutant form that tells us something isn't how it usually should be. For example, the Curly gene (abbreviated Cy) is expressed normally as standard, flat fruit fly wings. Actual curly wings are only what we see when Cy isn't functioning properly, or when it isn't expressed at all because of random mutation or other genetic or enviornmental factors. The name is not describing what we observe everyday in normal conditions, but the resulting characteristic when normal function is absent.

Another example: Lets say I discover Matt and I need to assign a distinguishable name, one that characterizes life in his absence. I might name him Funnier (abbreviated Fnr) because things are much funnier than they otherwise would be when he's not around.

Here he is in his normal, wildtype expression. Not so funny.

It's cold here

It's nearly been a heat wave these last few days. I walked to my friend's house in Wisconsin and he was smoking a cigarette on his front porch in a T-shirt. I think today was 22 degrees. I guess that's T-shirt weather, even with all the snow.



I like Wisconsin but I'm leaving to go back to Seattle.

Lansana Conte died yesterday. When I was in Guinee two years ago (today in 2006 I was packing my bag to go to N'Zerekore) people were guessing he'd die any minute. He had disappeared from public view and from any TV broadcasts for the past year, at that time, but it was known his health was failing. Conte kept control pretty tight, so there was no one lined up to take control after him. He left an important empty chair and the immediate, apparent military coup broadcast over the national radio that an interim party, the National Council for Democracy and Development, would rule until elections could be held in a few months. They reported that the constitution and the government was dissolved, and meanwhile the prime minister broadcast from his office that he government was still functioning as it should. We'll see.

The constitution says that the president of the National Assembly should be named president in situations such as this, but it hasn't happened yet. But if everyone, including the military, is really upset with the current conditions, I don't know why they'd obey the constitution. Conte changed most of it throughout his 25 or so years in power, and it's the second the country has had with two presidents. (Mali has had as many constitutions as presidents). Seems to me that if a new National Council for Democracy and Development does take control, they'll probably want a new constitution that doesn't give unlimited terms to the president.

Lansana Conte took control in the 80's after Sekou Toure died. Toure was a brutal dictator who took power at Guineen independence from France in 1958. Among most people I've talked to, besides being a ruthless Guineen president, Toure is revered as a hero because he told France to get out of Guinee, that they weren't needed in Africa and he didn't want their "help", whereas in places like Senegal and Mali, for example, Leopold Senghor and Modibo Keita kept close contact with the French government. Sekou Toure wanted an Africa for Africans. Ever since Guinee has been one of the poorest countries in the world.

Sekou Toure has mythic status and people are still scared of him. When I was in Yanfolila in 2006 we were talking about Toure and my friend Lansine said "Sekou est un sorcere, et il peut mettre sa bouche dans notre coserie". It sounds better in French, but the translation is that Sekou is a witch and he can put his mouth in our conversation, meaning Sekou can control people and events. I don't know, but it was scary at the time. Anyway, even though he was a brutal dictator he at least brought running water and electricity to every region of Guinee. When he died and Conte took over, the far corners of Guinee, away from Conakry, were left behind. No more clean running water, no more electricity, while the powerlines are still connected to the tall poles and the wires droop across the sky into crumbling buildings. I never heard one person say anything good about Conte except that he's going to die soon, which isn't anything good, but the manner in which it was said lead me to believe it was a positive thought. I got really sick in N'Zerekore and took the long road back to Mali. It was one of three things: the water, undercooked chicken, or this one guy's dirty hand that was ripping the chicken off for me.

The road to N'Zerekore:



Early morning in Kankan:



As promised, here are more pictures of Yanfolila from 2007.

Here's Bijou when I left,



This is Sekou Kouyate, who I wanted to see but it turned out that he was somewhere in Bamako. His friend is Yoro Diallo (not the famous Yoro Diallo who's the best ngoni player, but just a different Yoro who plays the metal tube. And unfortunately he's just a substitute for Sekou's main tube player, Solo. When I was last in Yanfolila Solo gave me a tube.)



Here's Sekou's axe. He used the metal alarm disc from a digital watch with stereo wires soldered on, hooked it up to a battery powered pre-amp, then wired that to the dirty stereo speaker. In person the sound is indescribable. Gritty, dirty distortion coming from a folky west African gourd. It was rad.



And now here are climbing pictures.





I want to go climbing.

"Mishi b'i fe wa?" Yes I do have cows, thank you for asking.

I consider today a big success primarily because my first interaction with a baby didn't end up with her exploding into tears at the sight of me, which often happened last time I was here. Apparently I'm terrifying to small children. Well, not all children. Mainly the Senegalese, Guineen, and in this case it was Hawa's baby, Kadiatou, who is Malian. I think she even winked at me while peering from behind her mom's back, or it was a fly that landed on her eye.

Adjusting has been more difficult than I imagined it would be. I live in a gigantic house, my footsteps echo, and I'm alone. It's psychologically difficult, right now at least, to venture out into the public from behind the eight foot wall that surrounds the house, but in time it'll be alright. I'm a cultural chameleon. I only knew Mali as Issa Sidibe, a member of Papa Sidibe's family in Yanfolila. There I'd eat from a bowl with five other people, using our hands to eat, stay up till the early morning hours watching the one TV channel with a lot of the neighbors crowding around the TV set, pull water from a well, and pass morning till night together. There was never time to be alone. These first few days have been quite drastically different. But then again, it's the adjustment period. I have to remember how to handle a severe lack of communication, eyes staring at me from every direction, kids screaming "Toubabou" from a mile away, and lots of other psychological hurdles to be dealt with, like venturing out to find food for myself. I'd prefer eating with my hand with five other people all clawing at the same piece of fish than have a waiter deliver me a coke in an air-conditioned restaurant. I need to make good with the family next door so they invite me to eat.

So this brings me to success number two. After being granted the opportunity last night to complain about my somewhat lonely situation to a friend, via gmail, I pulled myself together and remembered everything I learned/endured the first time I was here and spent the day sitting under the tree out front with the neighbors and passers-by. I'm starting to fall back into stride. I spent the majority of the time trying to decipher what they might be talking about by listening for the few words and phrases I do know in Bambara, then watching body language and other context clues that might tip me off to the rest. Then when I heard something I could repeat, I'd ask what it meant. I remember it being much, much easier with Wolof. It was easy to distinguish the beginnings and ends of words, but with Bambara they all kind of run into each other, and there are a lot of small words like be, ka, ke, bo, ra, so, bi, ni, fe, which, when used in different combinations or attached as suffixes to different words, can mean a variety of things. That's hard. When I started studying French I couldn't understand a word anyone said, but it was only a matter of tuning my ear to how the language wants to work. I was used to Spanish, which seemed much clearer and defined not so annoyingly throaty. As soon as I became accustomed to how French is phrased, it was easy. Maybe I learned Wolof so well in comparison to Bambara last time because I invested so much energy into tuning my ear to Wolof that by the time I arrived in Mali, I was too tired and unwilling to go through the painful process again. This time around, fortunately, I studied Bambara a little bit and I don't have Wolof messing things up. I can devote myself to Bambara. I already saw some progress today out front. That being said, tomorrow I am going to try to find my old Senegalese friends. They moved but I know where they used to work and I can probably find a phone number for them as well as practice Wolof again.

A third success today was realizing that people prefer not to call me Tim, as Tim is short for Fatima, a woman's name. That gave me the opportunity to present myself as Issa Sidibe, the name given to me in Yanfolila last year (I think only 3 people in Mali knew my name was actually Tim last time). I like this because as I said, I was only known as Issa before, so to be called again gives me a sense of comfort in the craziness that is Bamako. So frequently, when people learn that I'm a Sidibe, my conversations go like this:

= I togo be di?
= Ne togo ko Issa.
= E jamu?
= Ne be Sidibe.
= Eh?!?? E be fula-ke??
= Owo.
= Fula a man nyi de!
= Aich! (while waving a finger at them). A ka nyi.
= Mishi b'i fe wa?
= Owo, mishi be n'fe.
= E Sidibe.
= Nba.

It's pretty fun. They ask me if I have cows (mishi) because often times the Fula are cattle herders. The Fula, or commonly, Puehl, are from the Wassoulou region in the south. Yanfolila is the main town down there and where I spent the majority of my time in Mali last year. Once I remember who the Sidibe's can joke with I'll be able to respond to people telling me that Sidibe's are no good ("Sidibe a man nyi"), by telling them that they're no better than a donkey (fali). That always gets a good laugh because it's so unexpected from me. I think I remember that Sidibe's and Diakite's and Sissoko's can all joke with each other. But a Sidibe can't have the same playful relationship with Konate's or Koita's.

Climbing is rad

I'm on Orcas Island with Brett and Nicole, well Nicole is at camp right now--boring. It just started raining, we're going to boil a duck. I found these pictures on Brett's computer.


On the Grand Wall (5.11a/A0). Brett and I basically came off the couch to do this. We didn't make it look pretty but we got up it.


Illusion Dweller (5.10c). Brett being a badass in Joshua Tree in 2006.


Coming off Bellygood Ledge after The Grand Wall in Squamish. This is one of the three sketchy traverses across the face of the Chief. Luckily this one was bolted, but it's still terrifying traversing across a ledge that's no wider than your shoulders and a 1000 feet off the deck.


I think this is on top of the Split Pillar on the Grand Wall.


This is our beautiful rack. The Grand Wall took us a good many hours, lots of blood, and sore feet.


Probably one of the last trips with my van. It'll be hard to part.

Nous parlons en Bambara avec plaisir. An ka bamanankan kalan. A ka nyi kosebe.

= I ni ce.
= Nba, I ni ce.
= Here sira wa?
= Owo, here doron.
= Sogomow ka kenna wa?
= Tooro t’u la.
= E Coulibaly.
= Nba, Sidibe.
= Nba.
= Mun don?
= Nin ye ne negeso ye.
= A be min?
= A be jirisun koro.
= I be ta min?
= Ne ta Wassoulou sisan. Wassoulou sira be min?
= A be kofe doni.
= I ni ce, ne ta sisan.
= Nba, k’an b’u fo.
= U n’a men.
= Allah ka here tile.
= Amina. Kamben sogoma.